


Bad Things

by flyingisland



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anal Sex, M/M, Oral Sex, Season Seven spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 08:15:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15725502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingisland/pseuds/flyingisland
Summary: “I’m not doing this because I’m trying to pay you back for before,” Keith says, slow and low, punctuated with small puffs of hot breath that feel like lit coals on Hunk’s sweaty skin, “I’m doing this because I have a crush on you.”Keith helps Hunk cope with the loss of his family.





	Bad Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [googlyeyeseyes123](https://archiveofourown.org/users/googlyeyeseyes123/gifts).



In the dark and the quiet of another balmy summer night, Keith comes to him.

Hunk wraps himself first in the familiarity of home. He breathes in the thick, desert air. He remembers what stiff Garrison beds used to feel like under his back. The scratchy sheets, the blankets that never breathed enough, he missed them, in a weird way. He missed all of this even when, in the moment, at that time, he’d have given anything to just go home.

He acclimates himself to Earth food, or at least, the scarce reserves that they have left. And he learns, slowly, to combine what he’s collected during his extended stay in space with what his home has to offer him now.

He’s made soups mixed with Earth vegetables and slugs from the Garklex belt. He’s made nachos with tortilla chips and Kalternecker’s cheese. He’s become well known around the Garrison as the guy who can make a delicacy out of pretty much thin air, and the engineer who can fix anything, if only the Garrison’s inhabitants leave him alone to work.

And everyone, to their credit, thinks that giving him space to mourn might be the best option. He knows that he’s felt that way in the past, too, when Lance was homesick. When Keith was broken up over Shiro. When Allura fumbled during a mission and, in reality, the best course of action might have been to reach out instead of withdrawing, but he’s only just seeing that now.

The loneliness and the disappointment, the helplessness and lingering uselessness, they ebb and flow. Like tides in a deep ocean of the life that he’s grown accustomed to now. Like the warning signs of a tsunami boiling deep down inside of him. He shouldn’t be surprised that nothing is perfect. He shouldn’t have allowed himself to get his hopes up, or to feel as though he’d had any right to be upset when, among the throngs of people awaiting their families, his wasn’t waiting for him when he arrived at the Garrison base.

And Keith, he knows, is familiar with this sort of sadness. It’s an unspoken understanding between them, that everything that he’s feeling now, Keith grappled with at a different point in time. He doesn’t have the strength to feel guilty for not comprehending it back then. He can’t bring himself, even in his current state of misery, to blame a younger Hunk for not having the capacity to empathize with Keith’s complicated emotions—because he knows that Keith doesn’t blame him. He knows that Keith knows it too, that no one could get it. No one could possibly grasp how terrible it feels to lose a family until they’ve lost theirs too.

The aftermath of their moment together earlier, the warmth of Keith’s embrace, those words that he’d spoken to Hunk, and the unique sensation of being completely understood by someone else—they’re humming in the thick heat of the air, in the dark and the quiet and the subtle hiss of the door that slides open to reveal Keith in the lighted hall. Hunk doesn’t get out of bed when Keith steps inside. He feels as though, back at the Garrison but still fighting under Keith’s leadership, maybe his wires are getting crossed. He can’t shake the feeling that he owes Keith a salute, or the respect of at least getting out of bed when he steps inside, even though Keith would never expect that from him. Even though, when he doesn’t do either of those things, Keith doesn’t offer a reaction as though he’s offended.

And even though, miserably, he doesn’t have the strength right now to do anything but fester here.

“Can I come in?”

Keith’s voice is quiet, but there’s no timidness or insecurity threaded in those words anymore. Another Keith from a different time might have dithered in the face of confronting someone else’s sadness. A younger Keith might not have had the forethought to even reach out at all. Hunk knows that Keith has grown into an unshakable leader. He knows that, in the mysterious, extended absence that Keith took from them, he became someone so different that, behind those dark eyes, that pale skin, that unreadable expression and those strong, unshakable words, he might not even be the same person who Hunk watched being escorted out of the Garrison so many years ago.

When they were young, Keith had seemed unbreakable as well. But it had been in an entirely different way back then, Hunk realizes, only now. He’d seemed as though no one could reach him—as though he’d built a barrier around himself so high that no one could ever hope to breach it to touch him. He’d only seemed so fearless because he thought that he was protected by the distance that he’d put between himself and others. He’d only seemed so strong when he was hiding, and when Shiro disappeared, well…

All of that came crashing down.

But this Keith is waiting patiently for him to respond. This Keith is lingering in the doorway—the only person who’s taken the time to notice the way that he’s struggled, when everyone else has been far too preoccupied with their own families and the plans formulating around them that the guiltiest part of Hunk’s brain knows are far more important than the emptiness in his own heart.

He turns his head away from Keith, eyes to the ceiling. And slowly, quietly—croaky in a voice that’s gone unused so much longer than Hunk has ever allowed himself to be quiet—he tells Keith:

“Do whatever you want, man. Sorry, I’m just… not in the mood for socializing today.”

He can’t see the expression on Keith’s face after he says it, but he can feel a tension fading between them. He wasn’t particularly polite, and he suspects that he might feel guilty for that later too, but for now, it’s a relief to know that Keith won’t get angry with him for not being accommodating. Keith, of all people, must understand what grief can do to a person—how it can drain them of every ounce of strength that they might feel to live through the motions that might have previously dragged them through such an exhausting, soul-crushing war.

But there aren’t any jokes that Hunk can think of that might make all of this feel better. There isn’t anything funny that might make him feel okay.

And he’s thankful, for a pathetic, brief moment, that Keith has never been particularly fond of comedy.

The door hisses closed behind Keith. Hunk holds his breath, listening to the slow beating of his own heart, the hum of machinery outside of the door, the perpetual blow of the air conditioner just overhead.

“It’s a good thing that I don’t wanna socialize then, isn’t it?”

And this finally gets Hunk’s undivided attention. Keith is shrugging off his Garrison jacket and slinging it over the desk chair when Hunk finally takes a moment to look at him.

He pushes himself up on his elbows, taking in the indentations of Keith’s chiseled chest, his flat belly, the wide slopes of his shoulders—grown bigger and harder in the months that he’d spent training with the Blade. He contemplates that burn scar, pink against Keith’s cheek, the way that the tension has slowly faded away from those thick eyebrows, the high cheekbones, the sharp line of his jaw.

Hunk has known Keith for a very long time now. Ever since they were young cadets first wandering into the Garrison compound. Through the gawkiness of adolescence, to the first hints of adulthood edging a firmness and a confidence into their once chubby, awkward bodies. Hunk feels as though he knows himself no better now than he must have back then, as though he hasn’t changed more than getting a little bit taller, speaking deeper, but Keith has always been beautiful—Hunk has always thought of him in passing as a gorgeous, distant thing. But while he used to seem akin to a supernova—caving in and exploding brilliantly far too soon and far too loud and violent—now Hunk isn’t sure what he’d call him. Still, a faraway star. Still, something far too perfect to touch.

But this version of Keith doesn’t seem like he’ll crumble soon. He seems, finally, as though he’s managed to piece himself together completely.

Keith smiles at him. Hunk feels warmth fan out over his skin.

It’s been a long time since anything has managed to nudge the numbness inside of him away. But somehow, Keith perseveres.

Keith is now on the corner of the bed, hands in his lap, face turned away from Hunk. He seems as though he might wait there forever, as though, as long as it might take, he’ll linger here until Hunk is ready to say something.

Hunk extends this moment in silence—watches the back of Keith’s head, the long, curled ends of his hair trailing down between his shoulder blades, the subtle rise and fall of his chest when he breathes. Without the jacket, in just the tight, black undershirt that he brought with him to space, Hunk can just barely decipher the outline of a deep, dark scar scored just between Keith’s neck and shoulder. He wonders what Keith outlived that must have left that there. He wonders how many terrible things Keith has survived through that he’s never told the rest of them about.

He knows that it’s selfish and perhaps even pathetic that he’s so frozen here. He knows that everyone else would be so much stronger in this situation than he has been so far.

But Keith isn’t judging him, so maybe that’s okay. Keith seems to think that there’s nothing wrong with being sad about this, and if Keith, of all people, has given him the free pass to mourn, well… he’d be an idiot not to take it.

He reaches out, ghosts his fingers over Keith’s back. And Keith doesn’t jump or tremble how he expects of him. Keith only turns slowly, smiles down at him, reaches back a hand to place on top of his own.

And Hunk, with that touch, finally understands this. He knows what Keith meant when he said that he didn’t want to socialize.

Hunk wonders if this is okay, if it’s somehow disrespectful of his family’s suffering if he allows himself to feel pleasure while they’re so helplessly trapped, but Keith is turning. He’s raising Hunk’s knuckles in his hand and pressing them to his lips.

“Do you remember when Shiro disappeared,” Keith says this more than he asks it, having shifted his body around to sit facing Hunk on the bed, his eyes hooded, his cheeks dusted pink, “I felt lost too. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I thought, maybe… if someone could just reach out to me, maybe… everything would be okay. Like, if I could just touch someone else and realize that they cared or something, or that they were real, I could… just get on with my life, but…”

“But no one ever reached out.”

Hunk feels guilt boiling in his belly when he says it. He feels as though, looking back on those days with all of the knowledge that he has now, he should have done more, or  _ something _ , at least, to offer Keith some relief during such a terrible situation.

He should have been better back then. He knows now that he didn’t have an excuse. They were supposed to be family. They were supposed to, at least, be friends. And Keith is helping him now. Keith is reaching out.

Keith, as always, proves to him that he can be the bigger man, when no one else extended him the same courtesy.

Keith laughs—a short, low rumble in his chest, as he drops Hunk’s hand, propping himself up on palms and knees, moving so fluidly forward to pin his hands on Hunk’s shoulders that Hunk barely registers that he’s moved at all.

“ _ Someone _ reached out,” he says slowly, the smile spread out over his lips so beautiful that Hunk can barely breathe, “Or did you forget about that?”

Hunk swallows thickly. At the time, Keith had promised him that they’d never talk about that again. He’d made Hunk promise that he’d never try to take things any further than that one “mistake” that one time. They’d been lonely and desperate, pawing at anything akin to pleasurable sensation. They’d been trying to feel  _ anything _ in the lonely recesses of space that wasn’t desperation, grappling clumsily with skin and touch, with motions that Hunk had wondered if they could feel even an ounce more wonderful if he’d been doing them with someone who he was supposed to love.

He’d always been attracted to Keith—ever since he first saw him. He’d been jealous once, of that free spirit and the determination, the ability to uproot and float away, in any direction that he wanted. Of whatever it was within Keith that propelled him forward to the next big thing, on the next dangerous mission, no matter how terrifying or impossible it might have seemed to anyone else.

Keith had always been strong and driven and beautiful. Hunk had always been scared. And he’d never allowed himself to believe that someone like Keith could gravitate anywhere near his own wavelength. He’d never been stupid enough to think that he had anything worthy to offer someone as talented and gorgeous and awe-inspiring as Keith.

But in mourning, in a moment of weakness…

His breath shudders in his throat. His lungs feel empty and flat.

Keith is drawing nearer, lowering himself down to press a kiss to Hunk’s lips.

Hunk allows himself to be kissed—because Keith is attractive and Hunk is smitten, because he’s having a hard time right now and he lets himself be selfish. Because they’ve spent a long time alone in space without touching. Hunk thinks that it’s unreasonable to deny himself a single moment of weakness when Keith is so beautiful and so willing to kiss him, but he stops things when Keith’s fingers begin a slow trail down his chest. He puts an end to all of this when he realizes what Keith intends to do.

“W-wait, man, no, come on. I know that time was just—it was just that _ one time _ , right? I-I mean… I can’t ask you to do this just because I’m having a hard time right now.”

Keith’s smile twitches at the edges when Hunk says “hard”. Hunk wishes more than anything that he could melt down into the fibers of these scratchy, military-grade sheets.

His big hand dwarfs Keith’s when he grasps it. Keith’s gaze is unyielding, dark and unreadable as he looks down at him. Keith’s smile doesn’t falter, no matter how many miserable, quiet seconds pass between them.

But he lowers himself just a little bit further. His breath feels warm against Hunk’s cheeks. He’s so pretty that Hunk almost can’t stand to look at him for too long.

“I’m not doing this because I’m trying to pay you back for before,” Keith says, slow and low, punctuated with small puffs of hot breath that feel like lit coals on Hunk’s sweaty skin, “I’m doing this because I have a crush on you.”

Hunk feels as though his heart has been jammed suddenly far up into his throat. He croaks, stammering desperately, his pulse thrumming through his veins.

He feels like he needs a time-out. He feels like he might need to take a moment to compose himself, or he’s going to do something or admit something that both of them regret.

But he isn’t allowed a moment, and he admits these things anyway.

And surprisingly, in place of surprise or disgust or putting an end to whatever he’d planned, Keith doesn’t offer him much of a reaction at all—aside from a deepening smile. Aside from the batting of those thick, pretty lashes against his porcelain skin.

“O-oh, well, I—I guess… in… in that case, um… I like you too.”

Keith’s grin grows wider. Color darkens at the apples of his cheeks.

“I know, Hunk,” he says, but he doesn’t make a move to free his hand—not until Hunk lets go of it and it drops back down to his chest, “That’s also why I’m doing this.”

Hunk’s feeble “Fair enough” is too quiet and useless for either of them to register it. Keith is kissing him again then, drumming his fingers idly over Hunk’s chest, then ghosting them further and further down. Hunk welcomes the warm, wet tongue that prods at his closed lips. He tries to remember what he must have been feeling the last time that they did this. He imagines that it felt lonelier, far more desperate and fruitless than this.

It must have felt like a double-edged sword—charity that benefited the most selfish parts of him. Helping someone, only by taking advantage of them.

Now, he just feels happy. Now, he feels everything that he must have been trying to emulate blindly back then.

Keith’s fingers find the firmness between his thighs. He tries not to feel too mortified when those dark eyes turn back up at him.

He imagines that Keith must have done this before. He’s too pretty to have spent all of their time apart completely on his own. There must have been a tryst with someone in the Blade. There could have even been some kind of groupie back here, waiting for him on Earth.

Keith surely has enough experience under his belt that messing around with someone like Hunk feels boring, but when he searches for an indication of it—when he tests Keith’s lips with his own tongue and finds nothing but eagerness to accept him there, he isn’t so sure.

Frankly, he doesn’t know why someone like Keith would waste his time like this. There are more exciting, attractive people right here on this base. There are plenty of stronger, more cunning allies waiting for them further out—far in the distant reaches of the universe.

Keith pulls away from the kiss. He’s palming the firmness in Hunk’s pants now. His grin is sly, curled up at the edges. He looks just as cocky as he sometimes does when he pilots, but his pupils are blown out, expanded wider. His lips are swollen, his cheeks are pink. He’s breathing deeper, his voice ragged with need.

Hunk finds every answer that he’s been searching for in Keith’s expression.

He might not understand it, might not know exactly why, but right now, Keith wants him.

And he wants him very desperately.

“You’re really ready for this, aren’t you?” Keith asks, laughter tittering at the edges of his words. Hunk feels his skin growing hotter, his voice wedged firmly in the deep reaches of his throat. But then Keith actually does laugh—and it’s gorgeous. It’s so awe-inspiring that Hunk can’t regret the embarrassment that he’s feeling as a result of it one bit. “I’m ready too. I… got ready before I came in here.”

Hunk can’t wrap his head around what that might mean for a long while. He thinks about it even as Keith slides further down, even as he’s fumbling with the belt and the fly of Hunk’s pants, and tugging them further down, all the way to Hunk’s ankles before pulling them around his feet. He tosses the pants somewhere off of the bed on the floor. Hunk can hear the belt clatter as it hits the hardwood.

Keith’s mouth is on him before he can register much of anything that he’s learned so far. Keith wants to help him out, he likes him too, and he “got ready” beforehand. The last part is the most pressing matter, he decides. He has his suspicions, but those thoughts are shoved far into the back of his mind—replaced, instead, by the fuzzy hum of pleasure rippling just under his skin. The hot coil wringing in his belly, the trembling and buckling of his body under Keith’s warm, wet mouth—opening wide, urging him inside and sucking at him there.

Keith’s tongue drags from the base of his cock to the swollen tip. His hands grasp at it, pumping the expanse that his mouth roves over, slick with his saliva and the precum dragged downward by his greedy lips. Hunk doesn’t have the nerve to look down at him. He covers his face with one hand, fingers feeling cool against his heated cheeks. He doesn’t have the nerve to tell Keith that the last time was his first time, too. That this time is only the second. That, anymore, he can’t touch himself without thinking about Keith, about what they did, about how casually Keith had rocked his world and ruined him for anyone else.

How he’d always thought that falling for the person who took his virginity wasn’t something that would happen to him, but it was. Undoubtedly, it was, and it was all Keith’s fault.

He has a feeling that Keith knows anyway, and he has no idea how much experience Keith might have garnered before this. He’s too good at it, Hunk thinks, too unbridled by embarrassment and nervousness to possibly be practically a virgin like Hunk is.

He grits his teeth, but they do little to mask the keen that ripples through his throat. He shakes under Keith’s touches, fighting back the warm growth of tension deep in his belly. He knows that it would be a bad idea to finish too soon. Whatever Keith was doing before he came in here, Hunk knows that it would be in his best interest to wait this out and see what those words must have meant.

Keith’s head is bobbing up and down, wet sounds squelching in the quiet air—accompanied only by Hunk’s rapid breathing and the rhythmic pounding of his heart. By his own confused thoughts sputtering out before they can form into anything coherent. By Keith’s ragged breathing, by the air conditioner continuing to blow out cold air. Hunk allows the fingers of one hand to thread through Keith’s wild hair, remembering, for a split second, how they’d felt pushed to Keith’s sweaty skin the last time that they’d done this. How he’d felt in that moment as though Keith might collapse, then shatter, under too firm of a touch.

The Keith between his knees now is stronger than he used to be. Now, more than ever, he can recognize that their time in space has changed Keith—crafted him into a bigger, braver man than the scared kid who left Earth after Shiro returned the first time. And far more confident than the terrified, grief-stricken person who Hunk comforted when Shiro left again.

He knows what he wants now, and Hunk feels no remorse, this time, when he gives it to him.

Because Keith likes him—he said so himself. Keith wants this, and not for any other reason than because it’s Hunk who he’s doing it with. Not because he’s grieving. Not because he’s scared.

But because Hunk needs this, too. Because Hunk is a person who he wants to make feel better, when things are confusing and upsetting, and when nothing makes sense.

When times are hard, Keith has made it clear that he’s here for Hunk. He wants to support him. He wants to make everything feel, for a moment, okay.

Hunk can’t articulate how that makes him feel right now. But there are tears hinting at the corners of his eyes. His chest feels tight. His entire body is alive, and eager, and malleable under Keith’s gentle fingers and the wetness of his mouth.

“K-Keith,” he croaks, skirted with pleasure, right on the edge of something desperate, and terrible, that might end all of this far too soon, “P-please, I can’t… I can’t keep going, or… or—”

Keith’s lips pull away from him with a quiet pop. There’s the shine of saliva sparkling down his chin. His eyes are softer now, glazed over. His cheeks are pink with the need that swells thick between them.

Hunk’s big hand finds his face. It feels like it’s on fire, just like Hunk’s. They watch each other for a moment that feels, to Hunk, as though it could continue on into eternity.

But Keith nods, then props himself up again. Hunk tries not to feel too mortified about his cock swaying between them. He tells himself that Keith will be naked soon anyway. He won’t be the only person sitting here, half naked, and riddled with obvious need.

Keith undresses only from the waist down—in one quick, fluid motion. So quickly that it seems as though, in the blink of an eye, Keith has changed from his appropriately dressed leader to… well, this. This sultry, hungry person who’s not wasting any time when he could be drowning in pleasure.

Keith is still, at times, just as impatient as he used to be. And right now, Hunk tries his best not to feel too cocky about it.

He’s still startled by how gracefully Keith is able to carry himself now, wondering at which point in time he learned to orchestrate his own body with the same finesse with which he leads the team. Wondering when he missed Keith growing from that scared boy into the confident man who’s currently climbing, half naked, on top of him.

Keith’s thighs are now encasing him, pressed tightly to either of his hips. And Keith’s own cock is sitting stiffly against his—lighter, and smaller, pinker at the tip, but glistening with the same precum at the divot of the head, as Keith leans forward to kiss him once again.

In the air that Keith allows between their lips, Hunk whispers, “Y—you got yourself ready..?”

And Keith flushes embarrassed, for the first time since he wandered in here.

“Y-yeah, I thought… I thought maybe we could get to the good part sooner if I was… ready.”

Hunk’s cock is sandwiched between both of his cheeks. He can feel a slickness there. And he can tell, just from this position, that if he were to angle himself just right and push up his hips, he might be able to slide right inside. He isn’t entirely sure if Keith brought his own lube, or if he found some in commissary, but he’s thankful, and somehow even more aroused. And disappointed, for a moment, when he grieves how wonderful it might have felt to slide his fingers inside of Keith and feel that warmth tight around them.

Keith is reaching behind him, between them, and wrapping his own fingers around Hunk’s cock. He gives it a few teasing stokes, bites his bottom lip when he smiles downward. And his thick lashes drop, his eyebrows knit closer together, and he raises his hips before lowering himself back down.

At first, he does nothing but tease Hunk against him. He pushes the head to the threshold of his skin, prodding at himself, gauging the thickness of it that he hasn’t felt inside of him in years. He lets out a long, shuddered breath, steadying himself with a palm flat, rested just next to Hunk’s head on the pillow. Hunk takes this opportunity—this flicker of a second between the beginnings of pleasure and being so close to something even  _ more _ —to drink in Keith’s pretty face. The slope of his cheekbones, the fullness of his lips. The curious scars littered all about his body. His soft, milky skin. Hunk’s hands have found Keith’s narrow hips—and they’re still big there. He still feels vastly oversized when he finds himself touching someone as small and delicate as Keith.

But Keith is wider too, now. He’s sharper and far firmer than Hunk remembers. And he doesn’t shirk away when Hunk touches him this time—doesn’t try to convince both of them that this is a one time thing, and perhaps even a future regret, as he eases himself downward to envelope all of Hunk at once.

Their lips meet again. Keith keens deep in his throat. Hunk trembles in the overwhelming sensation of Keith all around him—shudders at the tightness of him, the warmth and the wetness of the lube that Keith had taken the time to prepare himself with before wandering in here. It might be funny, Hunk thinks, that he went into this knowing that it would end in sex, if only he weren’t living in this moment now.

And if only he hadn’t been spending so much time since that single, lonely night when they’d come together the first time dreaming about this same thing happening all over again.

If only this were happening under better circumstances, he thinks. If only he were able to enjoy this without the prevailing misery, never quite releasing its tight grip on his heart.

But Keith is pulling himself back up, painstakingly slowly. He’s dragged his other hand back to Hunk’s shoulder, steadying himself against Hunk’s body as he pulls his hips further and further up. His breathing is heavy and labored. Hunk can feel something vibrating in the air between them—popping with energy, something on the tips of their tongues, just waiting to be said out loud.

In place of the words that he so often stumbles over, Keith uses his lips. His kiss is the slow drizzle of a sunshower in place of the hurricane that Hunk remembers. His touches are far more tender, and even the gradual up and down of his hips is more patient than the last time—a testimony, once again, to something inside of him that’s evolved. Something that’s changed there, bloomed beautifully without anyone noticing much of a difference at all.

But Hunk can see it now. He can taste it, can feel it humming here in the undercurrent of everything that feels so desperately good. Keith is a newer, bigger man, but Keith still wants him. Keith is braver and more composed—he’s stronger and faster and smarter than he ever was before.

But he’d lied to Hunk when he’d told him that they’d regret the first time.

A lot of things have changed, but this—this time together, the comfort that they find in each others company—Hunk is more relieved than he can possibly admit out loud, to find that it’s stayed the same.

Hunk feels himself drawn further and further into the comfortable buzz of pleasure. He feels those bad memories and the miserable thoughts that have plagued him since he got here fading into nothing but this moment, and this feeling—this happiness and pleasure that he’s found now in Keith. He feels himself tethered here, now, in the feeling of Keith pushing himself up, sliding back down. In Keith’s short puffs of breath. In Keith’s fingers gripping at his shoulders tighter, shaking, moans slipping past tightly closed teeth and color staining the usual pearly white of his skin.

He finds himself lost in Keith’s glassy, unfocused eyes. Finds himself, moving his big hands on Keith’s slim hips, pulling him up, pushing him down—and Keith lets him. It doesn’t take any struggle for Keith to relinquish control, doesn’t take more than a moment of Hunk vying for it for Keith to hand it over happily, and to find himself, too, trapped in the bubble of the good feelings suddenly possessing both of them.

And Keith kisses him, holds him tighter. Keith whispers so many things to him that are lost in the slow-growth of that warm, jittering pleasure building up inside of him.

Hunk cums—with a gasp and a tremble. He cums with one final push of Keith’s body down on top of him, tight around him, warm enough that all coherent thought fizzles away, replaced instead with the white-hot of his orgasm, the jerking of his body under the force of it, the momentum of his heart clamoring at the rapid-building of this desperate neediness. And before he can even catch his breath—before the humming of warmth and the dizzying light of his orgasm completely ebbs away—he’s grasping Keith between their bodies and stroking at him. Slow, clumsy. Keith arches his back, separates them with arms extended all the way out, with fingers clawed hard into his shoulders.

Keith is breathing, open-mouthed. He’s allowing every sound to tumble from those swollen, pink lips.

Hunk doesn’t mention the yellow of his sclera peeking through the thick black of his eyelashes. He doesn’t mention the curious sharpness of his teeth when he gasps, of the way that the light around them is framing Keith’s face in a purple glow.

He imagines that Keith will explain this hallucination later on. He’ll tell him what must have happened to cause this change in him, and it’s harmless, and maybe just a little bit sexy—knowing that he can elicit a response in Keith that he’s never caught outside of the final tendrils of battle, or moments of great frustration and pent-up stress.

Lance had asked him once,  _ “Do you think Keith “Galras out” when he cums too?” _

He’d told Lance to shut his mouth, that was gross. It was inappropriate and borderline mutiny.

But now, he supposes, he has the answer. Even if Lance will never have the chance to know it.

Eventually, after just a few more long, slow strokes, Keith cums too—with a hoarse cry, with a subtle shaking, with a tightening of himself around Hunk, still buried deep inside.

And, for a moment, everything stays okay.

Keith spurts warmth and wetness over Hunk’s belly, bleeding into the fabric of his shirt. He quakes and slumps down. They’re both sweaty and exhausted. And unlike last time, Keith doesn’t make an immediate dive to collect his things and excuse all of this away in a vain attempt to create more distance between them.

His chest expands with each breath, his sclera whiten, just as he manages to fully open his eyes. His teeth—straight and white—his soft smile. The buzz of his words in Hunk’s ears, just as the final waves of his orgasm recede.

“That—that was really good.”

Hunk is happy, and he’s sleepy, and his muscles feel sore in the very best way, when Keith pulls himself off and slides under the blanket, pulling it out and over them both.

Hunk catches his breath, wraps his arms around Keith. The loneliness isn’t abated for long, but it’s numbed now. It feels like something that maybe he can manage. It feels like something that won’t stick around forever—that he can forget, sometimes, without doing a disservice to his family, still waiting helplessly for someone to finally save them.

Hunk holds Keith close, buries his face in his shoulder, ignoring the tickling of his hair on his nose and cheeks. He enjoys the warmth and the solidness of another person so close to him, with arms wrapped around him. He enjoys the feeling of not being totally alone. He’s a real person, here, in this moment. He’s someone worth worrying about—not a coward, not a fool. Not a baby who needs to understand the importance and the pain and hopelessness of war. He’s a soldier who’s allowed a moment of weakness. He’s a human who’s allowed to be weak sometimes.

He’s a tired person, aged beyond his years. He doesn’t deserve this--none of them do. They’ve fought so hard to rescue all of the universe, and now, when he needs saving, Keith’s here.

Keith holds him, even when he cries. Even when that feeling grows to uncontrollable sizes. Even when he’s possessed by it, drained dry by it. Even when he doesn’t know what to do, or to say, or how to act to make Keith believe that everything is okay.

Even when their reality breaches the bubble that they’ve build, and he knows, with absolution, that nothing will ever be fixed completely, no matter how many times he tries to distract himself.

Keith tells him that they’ll figure it out. He tells them that they’ll win, he’ll save his family, and Keith won’t leave him—he’ll be with him every step of the way.

Hunk feels stranded on the edge of something overwhelming and terrible. He feels selfish and foolish and cowardly all over again.

But when Keith whispers to him, when he kisses him. When he wraps him in those small, strong arms—

Hunk believes him.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story that I wrote for the wonderful [paladong-s](http://paladong-s.tumblr.com)! She’s an incredibly lovely person, who just happened to be one of the first Heith fans that I really got to know in the fandom, and she’s just… so good. I adore her with all of my heart.
> 
> And, of course, with the recent Heithy events in season 7, I thought a small celebration was in order, so… this is for you, Mai! Thank you so much for always being the amazing, supportive person who you are. Thank you for making everything so much better just by being there, as a hilarious, warm, and welcoming, and profoundly talented person!
> 
> Much love from me to you!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this! <3
> 
> [tumblr](http://curionabang.tumblr.com), [twitter](https://twitter.com/MothIsland)


End file.
